Migrate from Softgarden to BambooHR

Softgarden Applicant records map to BambooHR Applicant records. The applicant's name, email, phone, address, and custom profile fields transfer to BambooHR's Applicant object. Softgarden's German-language field labels (e.g., fields with German identifiers) are normalized to English equivalents during transformation. BambooHR's ATS must be enabled in the destination tenant as a priced add-on before applicant import begins. Any applicant who entered the configured trigger status before the Softgarden export was set up is permanently excluded from PUSH export and is flagged during scoping for manual extraction or alternative retrieval.

Softgarden Application records link Applicants to Positions and carry pipeline stage, application date, and source channel. BambooHR does not have a distinct Application object; instead, the applicant record is associated with a Job Opening and the stage status is tracked within the applicant timeline. We map the Softgarden application date to the BambooHR Applicant dateApplied field and the source channel to the source field. Pipeline stage names (New, Screening, Interview, Offer, Hired, Onboarding) migrate as status notes or custom fields where BambooHR's schema allows.

Softgarden Positions map to BambooHR Job Openings. The position title, department, location, employment type, and job description migrate as Job Opening fields. Softgarden's Katalogwerte for location and department map to BambooHR's location and department dropdown fields, with catalog value resolution against the destination system's configured options. Active versus archived status distinguishes open versus closed Job Openings in BambooHR.

Softgarden uses Katalogwerte for structured dropdown fields such as location, department, employment type, and source channel. The Softgarden API exposes a dedicated endpoint for resolving catalog values. We map each Katalogwerte entry to the corresponding BambooHR dropdown field and pre-create any destination options that do not already exist. Mismatches between Softgarden catalog values and BambooHR dropdown options are reconciled during scoping and resolved to the closest matching destination value or flagged for admin to configure.

Softgarden attachments including CVs, profile pictures, and application documents migrate as file attachments on the corresponding BambooHR Applicant record. We retrieve attachments via the Softgarden attachment API and upload to BambooHR using the BambooHR file upload API. The Softgarden system-composed applicant PDF (which includes all attachments in a composed summary) is not available via on-demand API and is excluded; we rely on raw attachment files from the API instead. All file attachments are validated for format compatibility with BambooHR's supported file types.

Softgarden tracks the channel (job board, direct, referral) each application came from via configured application sources. These catalog values migrate to BambooHR's Applicant source field, which can be a standard dropdown or a custom field depending on the destination configuration. We resolve each Softgarden source catalog value against the BambooHR source options and flag any values without a matching option for admin configuration before migration.

Softgarden uses configurable workflow stages (e.g., New, Screening, Interview, Offer, Hired, Onboarding) with transition timestamps. BambooHR tracks applicant status within the applicant timeline but does not have an equivalent configurable stage pipeline in its standard ATS module. We migrate stage names and transition dates as custom fields or timeline notes on the Applicant record, preserving the historical progression. Custom stage names from Softgarden are mapped to BambooHR-compatible labels or retained as custom field values.

Softgarden exposes custom fields within application and position records but does not publish a dedicated API endpoint to enumerate all custom fields and their types upfront. We discover active custom fields by querying a sample of records during the discovery phase and inferring schema from field presence across the dataset. Each discovered custom field is then configured in BambooHR using the Custom Field Builder (available in Settings) or via BambooHR support for field types that require admin creation. Field type mapping (text to short answer, dropdown to list) is determined during discovery and documented in the mapping spec.

Softgarden acquired absence.io in 2021 to add personnel files, absence management, and time recording. This data lives in a separate product instance with its own API and is not accessible via the Softgarden ATS Frontend API v3. We do not migrate absence.io data as part of a Softgarden-to-BambooHR migration. Customers needing absence.io data migrated should treat it as a separate migration engagement with the absence.io source system.

Softgarden tracks hiring managers and recruiters as owner references on applications and positions. We resolve owners by email match against the BambooHR User table. In BambooHR's ATS context, the assigned recruiter on an Applicant record maps from the Softgarden owner reference. Any Softgarden owner without a matching BambooHR User is held in a reconciliation queue for the customer's admin to provision before record import resumes.